World May Post Hottest Year in 2010, UN Agency Says

A tourist walks along the beach during a windy day in Cancun, Mexico. Photographer: Omar Torres/AFP/Getty Images

Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Global average temperatures may be
the warmest on record this year, the World Meteorological
Organization said, days after announcing that greenhouse-gas
concentrations are the highest since measurements began.

The worldwide average temperature in 2010 through part of
November was 0.55 degree Celsius hotter than the long-term
average of 14 degrees (57 degrees Fahrenheit), the WMO Secretary
General Michel Jarraud said.

“The long-term trend is a trend of very significant
warming,” Jarraud said today in Cancun, Mexico, where envoys
from 194 nations are working on a treaty curb climate change.
“We are very concerned. You cannot dispute the warming.”

The findings put pressure at UN delegates to agree on a
pact on limiting emissions from burning fossil fuels, which is
blamed for damaging the atmosphere. Those discussions dissolved
last year without a legally binding treaty to replace the limits
under the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.

“We need to do more to prevent dangerous climate change
from happening,” Peter Wittoeck, a Belgian envoy who leads the
European Union delegation, said at a press conference today.
“The European Union alone taking action would not solve the
problem.”

Emissions Limits

Reducing output of heat-trapping gases is the key goal of
the UN talks in Cancun. The concentration of carbon dioxide,
methane and nitrous oxide, the main man-made greenhouse gases
blamed for global warming, rose to a record last year, the WMO
said on Nov. 24.

“Melting glaciers are going to impact all of us,” said
Patricia Cochran, executive director of the Alaska Native
Science Commission. “Our people are not rich people.”

The U.S., EU, China and other nations that signed an
informal accord in Copenhagen last year agreed to try to keep
temperature gains to 2 degrees Celsius. Christiana Figueres, the
UN diplomat, leading the talks this year, said the current
emissions pledges aren’t enough to meet that goal. Today’s
figures give scientific backing to her concerns.

“If greenhouse gases continue to increase, then global
average temperatures could rise by 4 degrees Celsius, compared
to pre-industrial temperatures, by the end of the century or
even as early as 2060,” Vicky Pope, head of climate science at
Britain’s Met Office, said in an e-mailed interview.

The atmospheric gases, stemming mainly from burning fossil
fuels, changes in land use and deforestation, continued a rising
trend that began with industrialization in the 18th century.

Cooler in 2011

Next year is likely to be cooler because of a “very
strong” La Nina effect, the Met Office said today in an e-mailed statement. That refers to a periodic pattern of cooler
surface waters in the Pacific Ocean. The latest began in the
second half of 2010. The British agency said 2011 is likely to
be about 0.44 degrees Celsius hotter than the 1961 through 1990
average, placing it among the 10 warmest years on record.

That compares with the 0.52-degree temperature “anomaly”
registered in 1998, the hottest year in the series compiled by
the Met Office since 1850. The Met Office provides one of the
three datasets used by the UN to guide climate talks.

The two other data sets are compiled by the U.S. National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration. The NOAA and NASA series
both registered anomalies through October that, if continued
through November and December, would also show records for this
year. Both hit record years in 2005. The three series each are
calculated in a slightly different way.

Reading the Trend

While a single year of data “doesn’t give a scientific
basis to arrive at any kind of inference,” there’s a stronger
trend to be drawn from a longer series of readings, Rajendra
Pachauri, the UN’s chief climate scientist, said in an interview
in Cancun. Before this year, 11 of the previous 12 years
featured in the 12 hottest years in recorded history, he said.

“It’s important for negotiators to follow the science and
use the negotiations on climate change to respond to the
science,” Pachauri said.

The average temperature rose at about 0.16 degree per
decade in the 1980s and 1990s. The rate through the 2000s has
been from 0.05 to 0.13 degree, according to Pope.

“There is a strong signal of warming when we look at the
decade-on-decade changes in temperature,” Pope said.

Nine climate indicators -- including temperatures in
the lower atmosphere, humidity, rising sea levels, declining
sea ice and shrinking glaciers, all point toward a warming
climate, according to a report last week from the Met Office.

‘‘Industrialized countries cannot cheat the atmosphere,’’
said Martin Kaiser, Greenpeace's political coordinator.
‘‘Science must drive this negotiating process, which means
bringing the oil and coal industries under control.’’